


Who you are, Who you were, and Who you will no longer be

by ExistentialCrises



Category: Persona 3, Persona Series
Genre: Death, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, M/M, Not really a ship thing but there are some mentions of it, Philisophically happy ending, character exploration, except you’re the one experiencing both, themes of death, this is basically a glorified poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:20:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23516824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExistentialCrises/pseuds/ExistentialCrises
Summary: The boy’s name is Minato Arisato, and he is not, cannot be, understood. He walks through life in a trance. It’s not as if things are hazy, his mind is clear and his senses are present. But when he looks around himself and moves, when he touches rough edges and listens to sore shouts they become smooth. Glassy. It had always been that way, since he became quiet.Whether one happened because of the other or if they happened in tandem was a mystery, but they were his reality.A noiseless reality of water and glass and ice and smooth.—A narrative summary of the P3 protagonist’s life and the impacts he made.
Relationships: Arisato Minato/Mochizuki Ryoji, Mochizuki Ryoji/Persona 3 Protagonist, Mochizuki Ryoji/Yuuki Makoto
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Who you are, Who you were, and Who you will no longer be

**Author's Note:**

> TW: death, loss, grief, and trauma

There is a boy.

A boy who is quiet, not soft-spoken but certainly not one to raise his voice. He’s been quiet for years now. Why this is no one can say, and if the boy knows he won’t be the one to. 

But that’s just how things go when you’re quiet. 

The people around him look on with a range of responses. Bewilderment, disgust, pity, fear. People fear what they don’t understand. 

The boy’s name is Minato Arisato, and he is not, cannot be, understood. He walks through life in a trance. It’s not as if things are hazy, his mind is clear and his senses are present. But when he looks around himself and moves, when he touches rough edges and listens to sore shouts they become smooth. Glassy. It had always been that way, since he became quiet. 

Whether one happened because of the other or if they happened in tandem was a mystery, but they were his reality. 

A noiseless reality of water and glass and ice and smooth. 

Minato had become used to it. And that was the really the only way to describe his perspective, “used to it.” Calm waters weren’t unpleasant, but there certainly wasn’t anything stimulating about them either. 

The boy met people, other boys and girls his age but not his breed and one boy who was. 

The first girl he met, he met through conversation. What he had to say chilled her to her core, leaving something visceral and deep to shift and turn until no words could be formed in reply. 

“I don’t really care.

Is dying that scary to you?”

The words would have been taken as malicious if it weren’t for the mouth delivering them. It was clear that this boy did not offer them as a challenge. There was something sincere, lonely, and piercing about them. 

His words were glass and she felt the fear, the pity, the disgust. Her heart ached. 

Time passed and more words were offered from all kinds of hearts. Sometimes they were offered from easier places, like the mind. The boy and the boys and the girls spoke until they all felt nothing but aches and aching and laughter and pain and there he was, the boy, laughing too. 

And the smooth waters rippled. 

His friends, though they had never felt the smoothness, looked to him and knew it’s absence. Something had changed. 

They all felt love. 

Here he was, Minato Arisato, a quiet boy who loved and was loved. 

Once he found it, his love was dangerously unconditional. The kind that grasped everything in its path and held it close, regardless of ordinary or extra, living or dead. He loved the boys and the girls and he loved the boy named Death. 

And here we were all over again, except this time it was different. 

“Is it dying that scary to you?” He had asked. And how could it be for him, someone for whom Death was his first and final love? 

Yes. It’s terrifying. 

This time the question meant something else. The subject of the sentence had changed. The first time it was asked the girl had immediately thought of herself. 

Am I scared to die? 

How selfish. Now, they all understood the question differently. Is dying that scary? It depends, they would say, who’s dying?

If it was the boy, their answer would be unanimous:

Yes. Of course, yes. 

Because it may be scary to walk out of this world yourself, but to see someone else do it is terrifying. Especially when that someone loves and is loved. 

...

If they had learned anything from the boy, it was to embrace death, not to cower in its face. To live alongside it and adapt. 

They learned that Death was natural and gentle, that it told jokes and cleaned dishes and felt love, the same love they were all feeling for the same boy. 

Minato Arisato. 

Even his name and appearance sang of silk and glass and streams. 

His voice smoothed over a room of white noise and rendered it translucent, crisp and clear of sharp edges. 

Minato Arisato. 

His silence, his voice, his laugh, his love. 

His beginning, and his end.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the first work I expected to publish on this site, and this style of writing is very far outside my comfort zone, so I hope this is alright. (￣▽￣;)
> 
> (It was also super self-indulgent so I’m not sure if it translates to the fandom well but—here we are.)


End file.
